


Twenty-Nine Minutes of Staying Awake

by nausicaa_of_phaeacia



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Post Season 01, Revenge, compliant with "another six clichés that never were", not the happiest of fics, this is about Jemma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-18
Updated: 2014-07-18
Packaged: 2018-02-09 10:53:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1980156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nausicaa_of_phaeacia/pseuds/nausicaa_of_phaeacia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jemma while Fitz lies in a coma.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twenty-Nine Minutes of Staying Awake

**Author's Note:**

> Don't know where I was going with this.  
> I own nothing but what I wrote.

It's only once that she gets drunk, and never again.  
She will never decide if that was of any help. The research, though, maybe, and it's that 'maybe' she's been clinging onto ever since the third week of Fitz not waking up.  
Ever since then, change is all that's keeping her focused, because it gives her hope that even things with Leo could possibly be different one day. That she might have him tell her a stupid science joke over Bunsen burner sausages for lunch again. It's why she cuts her hair to chin-length, it's why she dedicates almost all of her time to research, scrubbing together all the bits of information on the GH as she can get, reading neurology articles during flights, experimenting with chemicals she didn't even dare to touch in college, going "into the field" to test on all kinds of illegal substances, spending her nights with DNA tests. All the night-time reading has forced her to get a pair of glasses, and they are too large for the fine shape of her face. It's only once that Trip dares to make fun of them; the next time he runs into her, he asks her out for dinner, and she accepts. 

It's only once that she sleeps with Trip, and never again.  
Not that it wasn't good. On the contrary. She doesn't think she's ever had a lover that was as careful, as gentle, as respecting with her as he was. Having dinner with him the week before was nice as well; she'd never have taken him for a formidable conversationalist, and the evening as well as the night gave her a glimpse of what Jemma used to be like, before ... well, before. It's her who leaves at dawn, carefully covering him with the blanket, tiptoeing out of his flat, heels in hand. He treats her with the same respect afterwards; she is surprised to realize how well he understands, and weren't she this busy with the researching, she'd be wondering about a possible story behind this amount of empathy. They go back to the sort-of friendship they've been leading before, and he remains the only person with whom she can actually stand to have coffee. He'll always defend her requests to have a day off (to spend it at Fitz' bedside, or at the Atahualpa Institute for Brain Research, or in bed crying) publicly, without a flinch. 

It's only once she visits Quinn in prison, and it's only once that she adorns his face with a left hook bruise (and it's for the first time in her life since high school that she'd dare to fling her fist at a man's cheek). That does help, no matter how shamefully she admits that to herself. And it keeps him from making fun of her lab coat when she turns around a little too swiftly to leave the interrogation room.

It's only once that she requests an interview with Raina, and it's only one question she asks, but with all the toughness and meanery and foulplay she has left and accumulated inside herself. Jemma Simmons has her means, and while blackmail and psychological tactics (she wonders if they are foul enough to be called a form of torture) aren't the most elegant ways of combat, she has become a specialist at those. And they have the desired effect on the woman, who looks very forlorn in the shapeless, patternless orange suit, and without the waves in her hair. It can't be long until one of the agencies recruits her, and she hopes it won't be S.H.I.E.L.D., or she'd have to force herself to refrain from wanting to smash that sphinx-like face against a table-edge.  
The information she retains from the occasion renew her feverish attempts at finding something to awaken her partner-in-crime.

It's not that she really wants to tell him that she loves him. Even though she does. But she can't decide if it's more than the amount as which she'd always - naively - classified it. Trip kisses her once more, a few weeks later, and it's awkward because she has her lab glasses on, on top of her optical ones, but it feels very nice and very human, and very real, as opposed to the half-awake state she's spent the last few months in, flinching at every noise, turning around every few minutes, locking her bunk door three times before going to sleep (an hour or so). She doesn't say a thing, neither does he, but somehow - even though she can't find any deeper feelings inside of her - it reassures her that what she's doing is right, it tells her that he knows why she has to keep living in this madness, why she can't look in his eyes for more than five seconds, why she can't let herself sleep away too much of her time. It tells her that whatever she must do is the only way of hanging on. That she has to find a solution, because it won't only make Fitz open his eyes, it will let her close them for more than just sixty minutes in a row (sixty-two the day before yesterday, fifty-eight last Friday). 

Nobody besides Trip manages to get through to her. She knows, she _knows_ they are all there for her, and sometimes, she breaks out of her current self and tries being her old, bubbly, sometimes annoyingly talkative and, at times, childishly romantic self again, for just one night, for just one lunch break. It works, but it kills more of her energy than half an hour of research for Fitz does. Not even a field accident Coulson has fazes her as much as she'd have expected it to - Skye mirrors the amount of horror it would have brought her, too, even only four months before, and it's only partly out of friendship love, but partly out of guilt that she isn't able to understand those feelings as much as she did anymore that she makes sure Skye (who'll be sitting at his bedside through the whole time) has everything she needs.

It's only half-heartedly that she engages in everything that isn't connected to her scientific research. When, finally, she does find a serum that could _possibly_ enhance Fitz' chances at regaining conscious brain activity, she passes out after putting the vial into the lab fridge. She doesn't even have enough energy left to remove both of her glasses. When she wakes up, she feels more shame than at any point before. She's lost twenty minutes of not giving it to Leo. May rushes to Fitz' bedside after her, she's practically on her heels, Jemma knows it's not only because Coulson ordered her to: she knows the others are all watching her, worried, caring, but it's no help. 

She injects the serum.  
The first twenty-nine minutes (on average) are crucial now. That's the amount of time she _must_ stay awake now, at least.  
She blinks.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!! :) Tell me what you think. This is my first attempt at something like this.


End file.
